What Nika sees on your machine

Nika never asks you to configure blind. Two commands read your machine — offline, presence-only — and hand you the exact next step: nika welcome is the thirty-second mirror, nika doctor the exhaustive diagnosis with a fix line per gap.

The mirror

nika welcome

Captured verbatim against the released nika 0.109.2 on a machine with no keys, no configs, no editors wired — the stranger’s first screen (only the workspace path is shortened to ~/demo):

🦋 nika 0.109.2 — Intent as Code. The workflow language for AI.
   one file · 4 verbs · one binary · audited BEFORE it runs
   every run records a tamper-evident, hash-chained trace

this machine
  editors    cursor ✗ · windsurf ✗ · claude ✗ · zed ✗ · hermes ✗ · vscode ✗
             6 unwired · one command each → nika wire cursor
  local      ollama · lmstudio · llamacpp · localai · vllm · no key needed
  state      installed · no inference path — proof → nika try 01-hello
  workspace  ~/demo
             git ✗ · no workflows yet · agents not briefed → nika init


this binary
  4 verbs · 28 builtins · 15 providers · 48 examples · 10 templates

a whole workflow is one file
  nika: hello
  model: mock/echo
  tasks:
    greet:
      infer: { prompt: "say hello to the operator", max_tokens: 50 }

start here (offline · zero keys)
  nika try 01-hello   # offline proof · zero keys
  nika init           # found this repo (wizard)
  nika new            # guided first workflow

learn: nika.sh · docs: docs.nika.sh · ⭐ github.com/supernovae-st/nika

Three details worth noticing: the five-line workflow is real (an engine test pins that it checks clean — the sample only appears while your workspace has zero workflows), every count on the « this binary » line is derived live from the embedded pack (never hand-typed — the 15 providers are the runnable cloud + local set; the catalog counts 17 with the deterministic mock), and the state row names the gap, never a vendor: no inference path yet, and the proof door is one command (nika try 01-hello — offline, zero keys, nothing written). --json emits the machine mirror (welcome_version: 1); --ascii swaps every glyph for CI logs.

The diagnosis

nika doctor

Three honesty rules shape everything below:

Presence, never values. A key is reported set or unset — the value is never read into a variable, so it can never reach your terminal, a log, or a trace.
Offline by default. The base run touches nothing on the network. --ping (opt-in) TCP-probes your local ports only — never a vendor endpoint, and nothing is ever sent on the socket.
Diagnose-only. Doctor prints fixes, it never runs them. Your shell, your PATH, your configs stay untouched (nika wire is the explicit, idempotent mutator when you want one).

A fresh machine, honestly

Captured verbatim against nika 0.109.2 on a machine with no keys, no configs, no editors wired — the worst case, and the whole report:

✔ 11 ok · 18 warn · 0 fail
✔ binary     v0.109.2 · self-contained (spec v1 embedded)
✔ lsp        available via `nika lsp` (editor language server)
✔ traces     keep 10 per workflow · max age 30d · budget 256MB (NIKA_TRACE_KEEP · NIKA_TRACE_MAX_AGE_DAYS · NIKA_TRACE_BUDGET_MB)
✔ mcp        available via `nika mcp` (9 read-only tools · nika_check through nika_tools)
✔ sandbox    seatbelt · exec and external MCP spawns confined to the declared boundary
✔ sidecar    local inference built in — `nika model serve --model <path.gguf>` (loopback · OpenAI-compatible)
⚠ models     none pulled yet — the sidecar has nothing to serve
  fix: nika model pull Qwen/Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507-GGUF
✔ registry   client matrix · 31 declared · 21 wireable · 6 probed · 15 declared-not-probed (codex · grok-build · claude-desktop · cline · continue · opencode · gemini-cli · antigravity · qwen-code · kimi-code · kiro · copilot-cli · amp · lmstudio · junie)
✔ local      5 providers (ollama · lmstudio · llamacpp · localai · vllm) — no key · needs a running server
  fix: nika doctor --ping   # probe the local ports (offline otherwise)
✔ image      mock ready · local → http://localhost:8080 default (set NIKA_IMAGE_LOCAL_URL to point elsewhere) · no cloud image key set
✔ tts        mock ready · local → http://localhost:8080 default (set NIKA_TTS_LOCAL_URL to point elsewhere) · no cloud speech key set
✔ pricing    633 models · 10 providers · snapshot 2026-07-28 · d5aa8fd06062f49e · list rates (public catalog)
· advisory   a healthy machine's notes — 6 agents unwired · 10 providers unconfigured · config defaults · nika doctor --verbose unfolds each

(A healthy machine reads calm: with no workflow in hand, doctor cannot know which provider or editor you need, so unwired agents and unset keys fold into the one advisory line instead of shouting eighteen warnings — nika doctor --verbose unfolds every row with its own fix: line.) Read it in one pass:

Row	What it tells you
`binary`	The engine is self-contained — spec, schema, examples, templates all embedded. No install step is missing.
`sandbox`	The jail this host actually has (seatbelt on macOS · bubblewrap on Linux). A `permits:` file will not start on a host that cannot confine (`NIKA-1710`).
`traces`	The flight-recorder retention bounds (`.nika/traces/`): keep-last-N per workflow, age cap, size budget — each env override named inline.
`registry`	The client matrix: how many agent clients the binary knows, how many `nika wire` can write, how many this machine was probed for.
`local`	The keyless, sovereign path — these providers need a running server, not an account.
`image` · `tts`	The media planes — `mock` always works, so media workflows are testable with zero keys too.
`pricing`	The embedded cost snapshot (models · providers · date · digest) — list rates, no network call.
`advisory`	The folded notes — unwired agents, unset keys (by presence, values never read), config defaults. `--verbose` unfolds each with its fix.

Probe the local ports

The local providers row says « needs a running server » — --ping answers whether one is actually there (loopback connect, 300 ms cap, nothing sent):

$ nika doctor --ping
✔ ping       ollama — listening on 127.0.0.1:11434 (7ms)
⚠ ping       lmstudio — nothing listening on 127.0.0.1:1234
⚠ ping       llamacpp — nothing listening on 127.0.0.1:8080
⚠ ping       localai — nothing listening on 127.0.0.1:8080
⚠ ping       vllm — nothing listening on 127.0.0.1:8000

One local server up = a fully sovereign inference path: no key, no cloud, no account. That is the machine from the capture running local models with nothing else configured.

For scripts and agents

Every fact above ships as JSON — agents and CI branch on summary.fail instead of parsing glyphs:

nika doctor --json

The fix that mutates, explicitly

Doctor never edits configs. When a row says fix: nika wire cursor, that command — and only that command — writes the MCP wiring, idempotently, preserving whatever other servers the config already carries:

nika wire cursor     # or: claude · vscode · windsurf · codex · all

First workflow

Your first run needs none of the keys above — mock/echo is free and offline.

Local models

Turn the local row into a running, keyless inference path.

Editors

What the wired editor actually does (diagnostics · canvas · time-travel).

Agents

nika init briefs your agents; nika wire points them at the oracle.

Overview

Getting started

Agents & integrations

Concepts

What Nika sees on your machine

The mirror

The diagnosis

A fresh machine, honestly

Probe the local ports

For scripts and agents

The fix that mutates, explicitly

Next

First workflow

Local models

Editors

Agents

​The mirror

​The diagnosis

​A fresh machine, honestly

​Probe the local ports

​For scripts and agents

​The fix that mutates, explicitly

​Next

First workflow

Local models

Editors

Agents

The mirror

The diagnosis

A fresh machine, honestly

Probe the local ports

For scripts and agents

The fix that mutates, explicitly

Next